John Morley

Any such claim is one not warranted by usage, or reconcilable with the freedom of the legislature.

It comes to this: that he tells the House of Commons, ‘Unless you are prepared to put some one in my place, your duty is to do whatever I bid you.’ To no House of Commons has language of this kind ever been addressed; by no House of…

Also politically, because I do not think that as a general rule the experience we have had in former years of what may be called returning or resuming governments, has been very favourable in its character....

The subsequent fortunes of such governments lead to the belief that upon the whole, though such a return may be the lesser of two evils, yet it is not a thing in itself to be desired.

The minister could not dissolve for the reason that the defeat had strengthened all the forces against the bill and against the government, and the constituencies who had never looked on it with much favour after its rejection by the Irish…

The conservative party will never assume its natural position until Disraeli retires; and I sometimes think he and I might with advantage pair off together.

As if, when a shipmaster had done all he could for safety, and fitted his vessel with everything to make her weathertight, then when he meets a storm and all his tackle strains and labours until it is torn to pieces, we should blame him…

But if there is to be a great schism in the liberal party, I hope I shall never find it my duty to conduct the operations either of the one or of the other section.

I apprehend that the House of Commons by its abstinence and forbearance, must be understood to have given us breathing time and space to consider what can be done to renovate the government in something like harmony and something like…

A lingering and discreditable death, after the life we have lived, is not an ending to which we ought to submit without effort; and as an essential part of the best effort that can be made, I am most desirous to communicate with you here.

Here only can I show you the state of affairs, which is most dangerous, and yet not unhopeful.

But before a public servant of this class can properly be dismissed, there must be not only a sufficient case against him, but a case of which the sufficiency can be made intelligible and palpable to the world.

Some of his faults are very serious, yet he is as towards the nation an upright, assiduous, and able functionary.

I always hold that politicians are the men whom, as a rule, it is most difficult to comprehend, i.e. understand completely; and for my own part, I never have thus understood, or thought I understood, above one or two, though here and there…

I think the clearness, power, and promptitude of your intellect are in one respect a difficulty and a danger to you.

In every question flesh and blood are strong and real even if extraneous elements, and we cannot safely omit them from our thoughts.

No man can do his duty in that office and be popular while he holds it.

You must assume yourself to be right, that you are justified in the course which you have taken, and act consistently on that view.

As for his further assertion about his never doubting that this was the determining cause of the dissolution, I can only say that in the mass of papers connected with the Greenwich seat and the dissolution, there is no single word in one…

Is it not a little odd on our part, more than his, that (at least so far as I am concerned) we have allowed this great Aye to be said, without a single word on the subject of the means of support forthcoming?

His life of Our Lord I thought a piece of trumpery; his work Sur les langues sémitiques most able and satisfactory in its manner and discussion.

I cannot as I now am, get sufficiently out of myself to judge myself, and unravel the knots of being and doing of which my life seems to be full.

Cette prétendue sagacité qui se croit profonde, quand elle suppose partout des intrigues savantes, et met de petits drames arrangés a la place de la vérité.

The spurious sagacity that thinks itself deep, because it everywhere takes for granted all sorts of knowing intrigues, and puts little artful dramas in the place of truth.

There is less premeditation in human affairs, and their course is more natural than people commonly believe.